1. On July 31 and August 1, 1986 my deposition was taken by attorney Eric Blumenson in the case of Michael Flynn v. Church of Scientology, et al., No. CV 85-4853-R(Mcx). During his questioning of me, Mr. Blumenson revealed that the individual who had filed the complaint against me with the FBI in Boston in October 1985 was a woman named Mitra Hall. Prior to that time I had never heard of Ms. Hall.

2. This morning I had business which brought me at approximately 10:00 a.m. to the MBTA Green Line Auditorium stop on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. As I was about to enter the station to take the train to work, I was approached by a woman who asked me if I would like to take a “free personality test.” The woman was approximately 30 years old, about five feet four inches in height, dark haired, light brown skinned, and big-chested. She carried in her hand a bunch of cards with the words “personality test’ printed on them. Recalling that the complaint filed against me with the FBI had alleged that I had identified myself as an FBI agent to an individual handing out personality test cards at this same location, I asked the woman her name. She said, “Mitra Hall.”

3. I then asked Ms. Hall if she knew who I was. She said, “No.” I asked her if she had ever seen me before. She said, “No.” I asked her a number of times and in different ways if she was absolutely sure she had never seen me before. She said, “No” to each question. It was clear that Ms. Hall had never seen me before. And I had never seen her before, and had never been to the Auditorium stop nor that part of Boston at any time before today.

4. I identified myself to Ms. Hall then questioned her about the incident which had allegedly occurred last October. She told me that she had been shown several photographs of me by someone, whom she would not name, in the legal department of the Boston Scientology organization, and had identified me as a result of being shown the photos. She stated that she had been accompanied by Scientology attorney Roger Geller when she went to the FBI to file the complaint.

5. I told Ms. Hall that she had filed a false complaint against me, and she stated she was justified “because (I was) trying to destroy (her) church.” She reiterated this charge, and the charge that my attorney Michael Flynn was trying to destroy her church, several times. It was clear from Ms. Hall’s failure to recognize me and from what she said that her complaint against me was false, but that she considered her action in filing the false complaint laudable because I was Scientology’s “enemy.” Following our conversation, which lasted about three minutes, I entered the train station and traveled to my workplace.

I declare under the penalty of perjury under the Laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct.

The question in this case is whether intervention under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a) (2) or 24(b) (2) was properly denied where the sole named defendant has, as yet, failed to appear. The plaintiff-appellee, Michael J. Flynn, is a Massachusetts attorney who has sued various Churches of Scientology and individual Scientologists over a number of years. L. Ron Hubbard, the defendant, is the founder of Scientology. On September 7, 1983, Flynn brought the complaint in this case naming Hubbard as the sole defendant and alleging that Hubbard had caused a wide range of torts to be committed against him.

The complaint alleges a written conspiracy by Hubbard and his individual and organizational agents and employees “to destroy” Flynn. This conspiracy was carried out, it is alleged, by various named Scientology organizations and individuals over which Hubbard has absolute authority. The torts alleged to have been committed at Hubbard’s direction are: malicious abuse of process; malicious prosecution; intentional infliction of emotional distress; trespass; conversion; interference with contractual rights; invasion of privacy; unfair or deceptive practices in violation of Mass.Gen.Laws Ann. ch. 93A; assault and battery; and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-68. There are no allegations in the complaint that Hubbard, acting by himself, committed any torts against Flynn; all torts it is alleged were committed by Hubbard’s agents and/or employees.

The putative intervenors are the Church of Scientology of California (CSC) and Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of the defendant. Both are named in the complaint as coconspirators. In addition to filing motions to intervene, CSC and Mary Sue Hubbard filed answers to the complaint. Mary Sue Hubbard also filed a counterclaim for malicious prosecution, abuse of process and libel. We note in passing that the tone, tenor, and language of the voluminous pleadings, affidavits and exhibits filed in this case (over 1,500 pages) is, at times, so accusatory, emotional and vitriolic as to make the reading of them a decidedly unpleasant chore.

CSC identified four “interests” that would be impaired or impeded unless intervention was allowed:

1. an interest in preventing its own actions, many of which it claims are protected under the first amendment or state law, from serving as a predicate for a judgment against the founder of the church and its spiritual leader;

2. an interest in defending both its own reputation and that of its revered founder;

3. an economic interest based on its fear that plaintiff will attempt to enforce any judgment by levying on church property;

4. an interest in preventing plaintiff from making offensive collateral estoppel use of a default judgment in the present action in other litigation now pending elsewhere against the church.

We note that all of these interests are based on the assumption that the defendant will not appear and there will be a default judgment against him.

Mrs. Hubbard asserted two interests that would be impaired unless she could intervene:

1. an economic interest based on the claim that she is wholly dependent on the defendant for her support and that a depletion or diminution of his assets will have an adverse effect on her and deprive her of her inheritance;

2. an interest in protecting her reputation which she claims is impugned by the allegations in the complaint.

Her interests, as with those of CSC, are based on the assumption that defendant will not appear and there will be a default judgment.

After a lengthy hearing on April 15, 1985, the district court, on April 22, 1985, denied the motions to intervene. No written opinion stating the reasons for the decision issued. Plaintiff’s motion for substituted service on defendant was granted on May 31, 1985, and service was made accordingly.

In this circuit, an immediate appeal lies from the denial of a motion to intervene under Rule 24(a) (2). Kartell v. Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Inc., 687 F.2d 543, 548 (1st Cir. 1982). The parameters of appellate review are, however, not so clear. We have held that “[t]he district court is to exercise its discretion in determining timeliness, and its ruling will not be disturbed on review unless there is an abuse of discretion.” Chase Manhattan Bank v. Corporacion Hotelera de Puerto Rico, 516 F.2d 1047, 1049 (1st Cir. 1975). The Second Circuit has applied the abuse of discretion standard to all 24(a) (2) findings because of “the great variety of factual circumstances in which intervention motions must be decided.” United States v. Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corp., 749 F.2d 968, 991 (2d Cir. 1984). But here, we are faced with a question of law: Can intervention be granted when the only defendant in the case has not appeared. This means that the standard of review is whether the court committed legal error in denying intervention.

Both putative intervenors make it clear that it is the failure of defendant to appear that has prompted their motions to intervene. They argue that Hubbard will not appear, a default judgment will be entered against him and they will be irreparably harmed if they cannot intervene. In her counterclaim, Mary Sue Hubbard states: “8. Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard went into seclusion in approximately March, 1980, and has not been seen by his family, or by any Church office, since that date.” Plaintiff, on the other hand, asserts that Hubbard will appear to prevent a default judgment.

We are in no position to determine whether Hubbard will or will not appear. We do know, however, that failure of a defendant to appear is a unique reason for intervention. We have been unable to find any federal cases in which intervention has been allowed or denied under Rule 24 because the defendant has failed to appear. This does not, of course, automatically preclude intervention; it does mean, however, that we must examine the law carefully to determine if intervention is warranted.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a) (2) provides:

(a) Intervention of Right. Upon timely application anyone shall be permitted to intervene in an action: … (2) when the applicant claims an interest relating to the property or transaction which is the subject of the action and he is so situated that the disposition of the action may as a practical matter impair or impede his ability to protect that interest, unless the applicant’s interest is adequately represented by existing parties.

There is nothing in the Notes of The Advisory Committee on Rules adverting to intervention when the defendant has failed to appear. The wording of the rule itself suggests that it may only apply when the named defendant has appeared and is protecting his or her interests. The last phrase, particularly, referring to “existing parties” suggests a case cast in the traditional mold with a viable dispute between plaintiff and defendant.

We now turn to the case law to determine whether intervention should be permitted when the sole defendant has by deliberate choice failed to appear.1 The seminal case on the scope and meaning of Rule 24 is Cascade Natural Gas Corp. v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 386 U.S. 129, 87 S. Ct. 932, 17 L. Ed. 2d 814 (1967). In that case, the Court reversed the district court’s denial of intervention in a divestiture suit arising from violations of Sec. 7 of the Clayton Act. The Court explored the differences between the present rule and its predecessor. It held that intervention should be granted because Rule 24(a) (2) “recognizes as a proper element in intervention ‘an interest’ in the ‘transaction which is the subject of the action,’ ” id at 135, 87 S. Ct. at 936, and because the existing parties “have fallen far short of representing … [the intervenor’s] interests.” Id. at 136, 87 S. Ct. at 937. Giving Cascade the broadest possible reading, we do not think it affords any basis for the proposition that if an individual has an interest in a case, as defined by the rule, he or she can intervene absent a defendant. The Court gave two reasons for allowing intervention, “an interest in the transaction” and the failure of the “existing parties” to represent the intervenor’s interests. Here, Hubbard has not appeared to date; until or unless he does, it cannot be determined whether he will or can represent adequately the interests of the putative intervenors.

Donaldson v. United States, 400 U.S. 517, 91 S. Ct. 534, 27 L. Ed. 2d 580 (1971), also focused on the scope and meaning of Rule 24(a) (2). Donaldson’s income tax returns were under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. A special agent of the IRS served summonses on the former corporate employer of Donaldson and its accountant ordering them to testify and produce records pertaining to Donaldson. Shortly prior to the issuance of the summonses, the United States District Court, acting on petitions filed by Donaldson, issued temporary restraining orders and then a preliminary injunction restraining the corporation and its accountant from complying with the summons until the court acted. The government and the IRS agent filed petitions in the same district court for judicial enforcement of the summonses. Id. at 518-20, 91 S. Ct. at 536-37. After a show cause order issued, Donaldson sought to intervene in the enforcement proceedings pursuant to Rule 24(a) (2). The district court denied the motion to intervene and ordered that the summonses be enforced. Id. at 521-22, 91 S. Ct. at 537-38. The Court held that a taxpayer may not intervene of right “simply because it is his tax liability that is the subject of the summons.” Id. at 530, 91 S. Ct. at 542. After considering Donaldson’s particular situation, the Court concluded that he did not have an interest in the enforcement proceedings within the meaning of Rule 24(a) (2). Id. at 531, 91 S. Ct. at 542. Neither the holding nor reasoning of Donaldson is of help to the putative intervenors here.

Mrs. Hubbard relies on SEC v. Flight Transportation Corp., 699 F.2d 943 (8th Cir. 1983), as authority for her right to intervene based on her economic interest in the assets of her husband. In that case, the SEC commenced an action against Flight Transportation Corp., two subsidiary corporations, and William Rubin, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of the three corporations. Shortly thereafter, a class action by Flight Transportation’s securities holders was commenced. This was followed by an involuntary bankruptcy petition against Flight Transportation. A stay of the bankruptcy proceedings and all proceedings in any state or federal court against the corporations and William Rubin was ordered. Joyce Rubin, wife of William, had filed a state action for divorce. She moved to intervene and for a modification of the stay order so that her divorce action could proceed. The district court denied her motion to intervene. The court of appeals reversed. It held that “Joyce Rubin may be unable, as a practical matter, to protect her interests if she cannot intervene” and that “the existing parties cannot be expected to represent Joyce Rubin’s interests adequately.” Id. at 949. William Rubin was at all times one of the defendants.

That case may be good authority for the proposition that a wife who has instituted a divorce action has a right to intervene to protect her economic marital interests in a SEC action with bankruptcy overtones against her husband and his corporations. It has no bearing, however, on a tort action like this, where the husband has failed to appear.

As already noted, we have found no federal cases allowing or denying intervention where the defendant has failed to appear. There is, however, one state case directly on point. Not surprisingly, the defendant is the same person as in the case before us, L. Ron Hubbard. In Samuels v. Hubbard, 71 Or.App. 481, 692 P.2d 700 (1984), the court held that the Church of Scientology of California, Inc., and Church of Scientology, Mission of Davis, had no right, under Oregon law, to intervene as of right in a tort action against Hubbard. As here, the plaintiff in the Oregon case alleged that Hubbard directed and controlled others to commit torts against him. The torts alleged are similar to the ones alleged here: conversion, outrageous conduct, defamation and fraud. And, as here, defendant failed to appear and the putative intervenors asserted that he would not appear. The Oregon court was careful to point out: “The record shows only that he [Hubbard] has not yet appeared.” 692 P.2d at 703 n. 1.

What CSC and Mrs. Hubbard really seek here is not intervention, but to be substituted as defendants for the defendant plaintiff chose to sue. There can be no question that plaintiff has stated a cause of action against the defendant. Plaintiff could have sued both CSC and Mrs. Hubbard but deliberately decided not to do so. If we were to allow intervention, despite defendant’s failure to appear, we would be forcing our choice of defendants on plaintiff. We see no reason why, in a tort action, the plaintiff’s choice of defendant should be nullified by substituting under the guise of intervention different joint tort-feasors than the one against whom the suit was brought. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19, the companion to Rule 24, joint tort-feasors need not be joined since each is liable for the entire amount of the recovery. State of Maine v. United States Department of Labor, 669 F.2d 827, 832 (1st Cir. 1982); 7 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 1623 at 241 (1972). The same reasoning applies to intervention under Rule 24(a) (2).

It would be premature to decide now whether the interests asserted by CSC and Mrs. Hubbard meet the requirements of Rule 24. Although we disagree with both intervenors as to the effect of a default judgment on them,2 it is the defendant’s willful action in failing to appear that has subjected them to whatever risks such a judgment may pose. There is and can be no suggestion that this is a collusive suit between plaintiff and defendant in an attempt to somehow indirectly impose liability on CSC and Mrs. Hubbard. Plaintiff has made defendant the sole target of his action. Whatever carom effect may occur is the direct result of defendant’s failure to appear. We hold that because the sole defendant has chosen not to appear in this tort action, there can be no intervention by the joint tort-feasors under Rule 24(a) (2) until and unless the defendant appears.

Intervention is also sought under Rule 24(b) (2). This allows intervention “when an applicant’s claim or defense and the main action have a question of law or fact in common.” The rule further states: “In exercising its discretion the court shall consider whether the intervention will unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the rights of the original parties.” Our opinion makes it clear that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying permissive intervention.

Affirmed. Costs to appellee.

COFFIN, Circuit Judge, (concurring).

I believe the court misapplies Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a) (2) in finding that intervention should not be granted when the only defendant in the case has not appeared. The court holds that the rule can only be applied to cases involving parties actually arguing in court because the rule refers to “existing parties”. The phrase “existing parties” appears in the rule’s third requirement: a party who satisfies the rule’s first two requirements1 shall be permitted to intervene “unless the applicant’s interest is adequately represented by existing parties”. My brothers claim that this requirement can be satisfied only when the named defendant “has appeared and is protecting his or her own interests”. Until that time, they believe “it cannot be determined whether he will or can represent adequately the interests of the putative intervenors”.

I believe this unique interpretation of Rule 24(a) (2) is unsupported by, and is contrary to, the language of the rule, the rule’s purpose, and the relevant case law. But I concur in the judgment of the court because I find that appellants fail to meet the rule’s interest and impairment requirements.

* The reading of “existing parties” as referring solely to named parties who actually appear in court and protect their own interests does not follow from the language of the rule. I think that the reasonable reading of “existing” is that it modifies “parties” to distinguish such from parties not formally in the litigation; that is, “existing parties” refers to the actual parties named in a litigation, as opposed to the nonparties seeking to intervene. See, e.g., Arkansas Power & Light Company v. Arkansas Public Service Commission, 107 F.R.D. 335, 340 (E.D. Ark. 1985) (interests asserted by would-be intervenors are “adequately protected by those that are already parties to this litigation “) (emphasis added). See also Woolworth v. Miscellaneous Warehouseman’s Union, 629 F.2d 1204, 1213 (7th Cir. 1980).

The court’s reading also fails to reconcile its interpretation with the purpose behind the intervention rule. Rule 24(a) (2) is designed to allow participation in a litigation by nonparties whose interests may be impaired.2 To avoid judicial inefficiency, however, the rule contains an adequacy of representation requirement, which precludes intervention when a nonparty’s interests are already adequately represented by an existing party.3 Because this requirement may preclude parties from intervening even when they have protectible interests, applicants need only make a minimal showing of inadequate representation. Trbovich v. United Mine Workers, 404 U.S. 528, 538 n. 10, 92 S. Ct. 630, 636 n. 10, 30 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1972). Intervention will be granted, if the other conditions are satisfied, unless the court is persuaded that the representation of the nonparty is in fact adequate. Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure 519.4 If the applicant shows that the representation may be inadequate, see Trbovich, 404 U.S. at 538 n. 10, 92 S. Ct. at 636 n. 10, then the court is precluded from finding that the interest is adequately represented. Note, Duke L.J. 117, 129 (1968).

The court’s decision to exclude from this rule’s scope cases in which the named defendant has chosen not to appear runs counter to the goal of protecting those who are not otherwise represented. Indeed, if the other conditions are satisfied, this type of situation presents the clearest need for permitting intervention because the nonparties’ interests will not be represented at all. Wright & Miller, supra, at 524. “An interest that is not represented is surely not adequately represented and intervention must be allowed.” Id.

A denial of intervention might be justifiable if the named defendant was likely to appear and might then adequately represent the interests of the nonparty. That is neither my colleagues’ position nor the posture of this case. Here, the record supports appellants’ assertion that Hubbard will not appear, and it is that very fact on which the court bases its denial of intervention. Yet it provides no justification for declining to decide whether the lack of representation here constitutes “inadequate representation”.

The court interprets the rule to apply only to “cases cast in the traditional mold with a viable dispute between plaintiff and defendant”. Regardless of whether this type of litigation is traditional, it will adjudicate rights and may impair interests of nonparties. The court would apply Rule 24(a) (2) if the defendant appeared in court and defended merely by asserting that the plaintiff’s charges were false, but would not apply it if the defendant stopped short of taking this small step. I fail to see any justification for creating such a formalistic distinction, not required by the rule, when the interests of nonparties may be equally impaired in either situation.5

My brothers suggest that their position finds support from the only court, federal or state, that has addressed intervention in this type of case. In Samuels v. Hubbard, 71 Or.App. 481, 692 P.2d 700 (1984), the Oregon Court of Appeals denied intervention as of right to CSC and others in a tort action against Hubbard. I disagree with my brothers’ suggestion for two reasons. First, the court interpreted a state intervention rule, somewhat stricter than Rule 24(a) (2). Id. at 704 & n. 5. According to the state court, a party entitled to intervene as of right under the federal rules might only qualify for “permissive intervention under Oregon law”. Id. at 704 n. 5. Second, the court did not find the intervention rule inapplicable to a situation where the sole named defendant chooses not to appear, but denied intervention on the ground that any interests the applicants had in the litigation would not be impaired by a judgment against Hubbard. In a footnote, the state court observed that the record did not seem to support the applicants’ assertion that Hubbard would not appear.6 My brethren infer from that statement that the state court denied intervention because Hubbard did not appear. To the contrary, the state court determined that even if there was “inadequate representation”, either because Hubbard would not appear or would appear and inadequately defend applicants’ interests, those interests were insufficient to require intervention. Id. at 705-06.

Federal courts faced with a somewhat similar situation have not taken the approach adopted by the court. These courts have addressed the situation where the named party appears at trial, loses, and chooses not to bring an appeal. An applicant has then sought to intervene for purposes of bringing the appeal. Courts have routinely found that Rule 24(a) (2) applies to this situation, even though the named defendant has not “appeared” for purposes of the appeal and has not “protect(ed) his or her interests”. Moreover, these courts have found that the nonparty has satisfied the inadequacy of representation requirement because there will be no representation by the existing party. See, e.g., United States v. American Telephone and Telegraph Co., 642 F.2d 1285, 1293 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (MCI was not adequately represented by the United States in the decision not to appeal); County of Fresno v. Andrus, 622 F.2d 436, 439 (9th Cir. 1980) (unwillingness to take appeal indicates that existing party does not represent would-be intervenor fully).

For example, in Woolworth v. Miscellaneous Warehouseman’s Union, 629 F.2d 1204 (7th Cir. 1980), discharged employees sought to intervene as defendants in a suit brought by their employer against their union seeking to vacate an arbitration award ordering their reinstatement. The district court had granted the employer’s motion for summary judgment and had vacated the award. After the union chose not to appeal the decision, the discharged employees moved to intervene for purposes of bringing the appeal. The Seventh Circuit found that the employees satisfied the interest and impairment requirements of Rule 24, and then addressed the adequacy of representation requirement. It stated that “since the Union has withdrawn from the case, the interests of the employees would not be adequately represented by existing parties”. 629 F.2d at 1213.

Cases such as Woolworth are characterized as situations where the named party has been nonfeasant in its duty of representation. It is well-settled that nonfeasance constitutes inadequate representation. Cascade National Gas Corp. v. El Paso National Gas Co., 386 U.S. 129, 155, 87 S. Ct. 932, 947, 17 L. Ed. 2d 814 (1967) (Stewart, J., dissenting) (“complete failure of representation by existing parties”); British Airways Board v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 71 F.R.D. 583, 585 (S.D.N.Y. 1976); Moore’s Federal Practice 24.07 (2d ed. 1985). In fact, according to Professors Wright and Miller, “the easiest case is that in which the absentee[‘s] … interest is not represented at all.” Wright & Miller, supra, at 519. A difficult question of adequacy of representation does not arise unless the applicant is represented in the action.7

Nonfeasance of representation also describes the circumstances of the instant case, where the named party does not appear before the trial court. A party who fails to appear for trial and thus receives a default judgment has failed to represent the interests of the would-be intervenor. Thus, if the union in Woolworth failed to appear before the district court to challenge the employer’s motion for summary judgment, the interests of the discharged employees would be left inadequately represented. Where significantly protectible interests of a putative party may be adversely affected in a litigation and the sole defendant chooses not to appear, intervention is warranted.

My disagreement with the court’s rather broad ruling, refusing to apply Rule 24(a) (2) whenever a named party has not appeared, is heightened by my conviction that it is quite unnecessary for the proper disposition of this case. For I conclude that each interest claimed by CSC and Mary Sue Hubbard falls short of the requirement that it be a direct, substantial, legally protectible interest that may be impaired by the disposition of the suit. Accordingly, I concur in the denial of intervention.

CSC claims that it has a First Amendment speech interest in the subject matter of the litigation. This interest comprises speaking out against Flynn and others, filing bar complaints, or pursuing litigation, all acts upon which plaintiff predicates Hubbard’s liability. CSC argues that its ability to protect that speech interest would be impaired or impeded if it did not intervene, because CSC would be “chilled” from continuing to engage in this presumptively protected activity once a default judgment issued against Flynn. This chill would occur, CSC asserts, because it would not continue to speak while parties obtained default judgments against Hubbard based on CSC’s speech.

CSC has asserted a protectible interest, in that it identifies its First Amendment right of expression. CSC failed to show, however, that this interest would be impaired if CSC were not permitted to intervene. It may be that in some cases a nonparty could successfully show that its exercise of its speech right would be chilled by a default judgment against the named party in a litigation. The nonparty would refrain from continuing to engage in certain speech activities, if its speech were the basis for the named party’s liability. The nonparty would have to convince the court that its ability to protect its speech right would be impaired or impeded by the default judgment.

In this case, no such showing was made. In its appellate brief, CSC stated “[i]t would be impossible for the Church to sit back and watch unscrupulous plaintiffs or lawyers take advantage of Mr. Hubbard’s unavailability to obtain huge default judgments based upon the purported acts of the Church, and the unsupported allegations of a complaint.” CSC did not make this argument to the district court in its written motion to intervene, but rather it did so orally in a one-sentence statement during the hearing. Moreover, CSC did not present any evidence as to why it would refrain from future speech activity if this default judgment issued against Hubbard.

Instead, CSC came forth with a purely conclusory statement. It offered no affidavits to support its claim and no evidence at all that a default judgment against Hubbard would have any effect upon CSC. Such conclusory allegations do not entitle CSC to intervention as of right under Rule 24. To find otherwise would suggest that all nonparties could intervene merely by claiming that their special relationship with the named party would chill their speech activities. Obviously, a court is entitled to a sufficiently strong factual showing so that it is assured that the intervenor’s speech would indeed be chilled.

CSC claims that it has a reputation interest in the litigation, because the allegations of the plaintiff “clearly, directly, and substantially” affect the reputation of the church. Moreover, CSC claims that it will suffer direct and serious injury because its founder is accused of serious wrongdoing.

A default judgment against Hubbard is not an adjudication against CSC; such a judgment does not mean that CSC took the actions that were alleged in plaintiff’s complaint. Additionally, a party’s reputation interest has not been found sufficient to require intervention as of right. In Edmondson v. Nebraska, 383 F.2d 123, (8th Cir. 1967), the state sued a prisoner who had recovered a default judgment against a prison guard. The state claimed that the default judgment was the result of fraud and collusion between the prisoner and guard and thus the state sought a declaration that the judgment was void. The guard sought to intervene under Rule 24, claiming that the state’s allegations of fraud adversely affected his reputation. The court stated that the suit against the prisoner would not affect the guard’s legal interest. It added:

“The mere fact that [the guard’s] reputation is thereby injured is not enough. [The guard’s] representative has pointed to no legal detriment flowing from this possible finding [of fraud] by the trial court, and we can find none.” Id. at 127.

In this case as well, CSC merely claims a generalized injury to reputation, but identifies no legal detriment arising from a default judgment against Hubbard. Mary Sue Hubbard also argues that her reputation interest is at stake because the complaint names and implicates her as a key individual in the actions against the plaintiff. Her claim fails for the same reason.

CSC asserts that its economic interests are threatened because the plaintiff will seek to enforce its judgment against Hubbard by levying on the assets of the church. CSC also seems to be arguing that it has an interest in preventing the plaintiff from obtaining a judgment in this case because plaintiff will use offensive collateral estoppel in future actions against the church.

If intervention were denied, however, CSC would not be a party to this case. Any action brought by the plaintiff to obtain assets belonging to the church would necessarily provide the church with an opportunity to present its own defense. Moreover, CSC will not be precluded by the default judgment from making any arguments in future cases. None of the allegations proved against Hubbard would be deemed proved against CSC.

Mary Sue Hubbard also claims that she has an interest in maintaining her husband’s assets, which provide support for her and will accrue to her upon his death. She claims that this interest is identical to that which was found sufficient in SEC v. Flight Transportation Corp., 699 F.2d 943 (8th Cir. 1983). In that case, a wife undergoing divorce proceedings was permitted to intervene in the SEC’s fraud action against the husband. The SEC action would determine what property belonged to the husband’s corporation, as opposed to the husband himself. Additionally, the SEC sought a stay on all other proceedings against the husband, including the divorce action, and a court-appointed receiver to take control of the husband’s assets. The court found that this action would have directly affected what assets would be available for distribution to his wife in the ongoing divorce proceedings.

Mary Sue Hubbard’s monetary interests in her husband’s assets are neither identical, nor similar, to the interests of the wife in SEC. Here, her husband’s assets are not the subject of this suit, the court is not attempting to take control of the assets, and she has no ongoing claim against the assets of her husband. If intervention were permitted here, whenever one spouse was displeased with the litigation strategy, the investment decisions, or the charitable donations of his or her spouse, the displeased spouse would be permitted to intervene as of right.

A review of the interests assertedly at stake in the underlying litigation reveal that the district court correctly decided that CSC and Mary Sue Hubbard are not entitled to intervene as of right pursuant to Rule 24(a) (2).

III

Appellants are asserting, then, either their interests as joint tortfeasors or the interests of Hubbard. Both interests fail to satisfy the requirements of Rule 24. This result explains my brothers’ concern that what appellants truly seek is not to intervene but to be substituted for the named defendant in order to protect his interests. I agree. I arrive at that conclusion only after a review of the appellants’ interests showed that they failed to satisfy the rule’s interest and impairment requirements. Thus, the result we reach, denying intervention, would be no different if Hubbard did appear but inadequately represented the appellants. Whether appellants attempt to substitute for an existing party or impose themselves in the litigation as a second or third named party, Rule 24 still forbids their intervention.

Although the court correctly, in my view, recognizes that intervention should not be granted, I do not accept its basis, i.e., the fact that the named defendant will not appear precludes a nonparty’s right to intervene. To the contrary, that fact itself satisfies the rule’s third requirement. Intervention is inappropriate because of appellants’ failure to show that they have protectible interests that will be impaired by this litigation. Had appellants made such a showing, I would find that they have a right to intervene, even if the named defendant, for whatever reason, chose not to present a defense.

1No suggestion has been made that defendant’s physical or mental condition has prevented his appearance. We take judicial notice that a science fiction book by him, The Invaders Plan, was published after oral argument and received a favorable review in the Sunday Book Review section of the New York Times

2It is black letter law that those not a party to an action are not bound by an adverse judgment against the named defendant

1Under the first requirement (the interest requirement), the applicant must claim an interest relating to the property or the transaction that is the subject of the action. The second requirement (the impairment requirement) is that the applicant must show that he or she is so situated that the disposition of the action may as a practical matter impair or impede his or her ability to protect that interest

4Under the former Rule 24(a) (2), one of the two conditions of intervention was a showing by the applicant that his representation by the existing parties “is or may be inadequate”. This language was revised in 1966 so that if the other conditions of the rule are satisfied, intervention is of right “unless the applicant’s interest is adequately represented by existing parties”. Wright & Miller, supra, at 519. “It seems entirely clear that the effect of this change is to shift the burden of persuasion.” Id.; See also SEC v. Dresser Industries, 628 F.2d 1368, 1390 (D.C.1980); Shapiro, supra, at 741 n. 91

5In United States v. Hooker Chemical & Plastics, 749 F.2d 968 (2d Cir. 1984), Judge Friendly stated that “[a]dequacy of representation should be applied so as to provide a functional test of a party’s need to intervene”. Id. at 992 n. 21. He cautioned that courts should not “import into the rule ‘fetishes of form,’ not required by the Rule’s language, that treat adequacy of representation from other than a practical perspective.” Id

6The court stated that “[i]ntervenors assert that Hubbard will not appear. The record shows only that he has not yet appeared.” Id. at 703 n. 1. As mentioned previously, the record in the instant case amply supports the appellants’ assertion that Hubbard will not appear

7Id. Cases where the question of adequacy of representation is more difficult include those where the party is adverse to the absentee, where the interests of the absentee and of the party are different, though perhaps similar, and where the interest of the absentee is identical with that of one of the existing parties. Id

When you called my office on October 21, 1985 concerning the complaint of Mitra Hall about Gerald Armstrong you indicated to me that you would advise me after you had spoken to Mr. Armstrong.

It has now been more than two weeks since our call. Have you contacted Mr. Armstrong? Did he admit to his violation of the Federal statute? Was he told of the criminal consequences of his actions? Will he be prosecuted?

In both my conversation with you yesterday and my discussion with Agent Graham on October 17, 1985, I pointed out that 18 U.S.C. §912 does cover the actions of Mr. Armstrong which are the subject of Ms. Hall’s complaint.

Apparently the Bureau is not terribly interested in bringing formal charges against Mr. Armstrong for his use of the Bureau’s name in his attempt to harass Ms. Hall.

As I have indicated, Mr. Armstrong has claimed to be close to the Bureau for some time now. Obviously, if he were an agent and/or employee of the Bureau, what he has done would not be a crime.

Therefore, please confirm or deny that Mr. Armstrong is or was an agent or employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MAZZONE, District Judge.

This is a libel action. The plaintiff, the Church of Scientology of California (“CSC”), seeks damages from the defendant, Michael J. Flynn, for allegedly defamatory statements made by Flynn and subsequently *267 published in a Florida newspaper. The matter is before the Court on the defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

Flynn, a Boston attorney, made the statements in November, 1982, in a telephone interview with a reporter from the Clearwater (Florida) Times. The statements concern Flynn’s attempt to appeal a contempt order issued by a Florida court in litigation against the CSC. The complaint alleges that the following portions of the story are defamatory:

Michael Flynn, Clearwater’s consultant on the Church of Scientology, contended Friday that Scientologists have infiltrated the Volusia County court system and stolen two checks that he sent to appeal a court decision here.* * * * * *Speaking from his Boston office, lawyer Flynn said he mailed two checks, one for $50 and another for $10, to Volusia, and claimed that he even has the bank records to prove it.”Someone at that end infiltrated the courthouse and intercepted the mailed check,” he said. “Someone like a Scientologist.”The filing fee is very important, Flynn said, because it assures him the right to appeal the contempt order.”It’s ridiculous to think I wouldn’t pay a $60 filing fee,” the Boston lawyer continued, adding that he has several deposits at the First National Bank of Boston and plenty of money in them.”If you check into this in depth, you’ll find that something’s afoot in Volusia County,” Flynn went on. He has noted before the Durden and Scientology attorneys are “longtime friends.”The complaint further alleges that the story conveys “the false and defamatory meaning that plaintiff, through its members, had improperly and corruptly become involved with the judicial system, had wrongfully interfered with the U.S. mails and had stolen from the U.S. mails and the Courthouse.”

Flynn urges that the action must be dismissed chiefly because the allegedly libelous statements are, as a matter of law, incapable of being understood as referring to the plaintiff.[1]

As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to make a choice-of-law. I look to Massachusetts conflict rules to decide which state’s law should govern this action. Klaxon v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co., 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941). Whether I apply the doctrine of lex loci delecti, see Brogie v. Vogel, 348 Mass. 619, 621, 205 N.E.2d 234 (1965), or the interests analysis embodied in Restatement (Second) of Conflicts of Law § 1818 (1971), see Pevoski v. Pevoski, 371 Mass. 358, 360, 358 N.E.2d 416 (1976), the result is the same: Florida law applies. The publication of the libel occurred in Florida; thus, that state is the place where all the elements of the tort alleged were first present. See Strogoff v. Motor Sales Co., 302 Mass. 345, 347, 18 N.E.2d 1016 (1939). Florida contacts also predominate, as that state is the place of injury, the place of much of the relevant conduct, and the place where the relationship between Flynn and the CSC, at least as far as this action is concerned, is centered. See In Re Air Crash Disaster in Boston, Massachusetts on July 31, 1973, 399 F.Supp. 1106, 1111-1112 (D.Mass.1975). In any event, however, Florida law provides no precedent closely on point. Therefore, in deciding whether Flynn’s statements are reasonably capable of being understood as referring to the plaintiff, I look to general principles of libel law on the assumption that Florida’s law is in accord. Cf. Arcand v. Evening Call Publishing Co., 567 F.2d 1163, 1164 (1st Cir. 1977) (Where Massachusetts law provided no clear answer to “group libel” *268 question, Court of Appeals “proceed[ed] on the assumption that Massachusetts law would be in accord with the current state of the authorities, i.e., would not occupy an eccentric minority position.”). The parties have done the same.

But a corporation, like a private individual, cannot prevail in a libel action unless the allegedly defamatory statement was published “of and concerning” the corporation. Gilbert Shoe Co. v. Rumpf Publishing Co., 112 F.Supp. 228, 229 (D.Mass. 1953); Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 561, 564 (1977). Whether a corporation’s standing in the community was actually diminished is not relevant if the publication at issue did not falsely charge the corporation itself with some kind of impropriety: “One who is not himself libelled cannot recover even though he has been injured by the libel published concerning another.” Gilbert Shoe Co. v. Rumpf Publishing Co., 112 F.Supp. at 229 (officer or stockholder of a corporation who is not personally libelled has no right to recover for a libel published of the corporation). Likewise, an allegation that a defendant made a statement, intending to reduce public respect for a person does not, in the absence of a libelous charge directed at that person, present a triable issue. Corrigan v. Bobbs-Merril Co., 228 N.Y. 58, 126 N.E. 260, 262 (1920) (“The question is not so much who was aimed at as who was hit.”).

With these general principles in mind, I turn to the central question presented by this motion: whether the defendant’s statements are reasonably capable of being understood as having been made “of and concerning” the plaintiff. In particular, I must consider whether the defendant’s accusation that “Scientologists” or “`some-one like a Scientologists'” stole his filing fee is capable of being viewed as a libel of the CSC.

For the purposes of this inquiry, I assume, as the plaintiff asserts, that the plaintiff would be able to prove at trial that the CSC is the official branch of the Scientology movement most active in Clear-water, Florida. Thus, I assume that a reference that is capable of being viewed as concerning any of the Scientology movement’s not-for-profit religious organizations would, given the facts and circumstances of this case, refer to the CSC.

Nevertheless, I conclude that the statements here at issue cannot support a libel action brought by the CSC. Flynn’s statements assert that an individual or, perhaps, a small group of individuals, infiltrated the Volusia County courthouse and stole his filing fee. The statement was directed at an individual or a few individuals, not a not-for-profit corporation. Had the defendant said, for example, that it was the practice of the CSC to train its members to infiltrate the courthouse, or reward them for doing so, a different question would be presented. But he did not. His statement was directed at the actions of one or a few individual Scientologists, not at the governing body of the Church of Scientology most active in the Clearwater area. Accusing members of any religious organization of criminal activity is hardly likely to reflect well on the religion’s official organs, but the fact that the CSC’s reputation in the community may have been diminished by virtue of Flynn’s charges against an anonymous individual or individuals does not vest in CSC a right to sue for libel. That conclusion follows naturally from the established principle, noted above, that one who is injured by the libel of another has no right of action. Gilbert Shoe Co. v. Rumpf Publishing Co., 112 F.Supp. at 229.

The case law supports the view that this action should be dismissed. In Mullins v.*269Brando, 13 Cal.App.3d 409, 423, 91 Cal. Rptr. 796, 805 (1970), cert. denied sub nom. Brando v. Coffman, 403 U.S. 923, 91 S.Ct. 2231, 29 L.Ed.2d 701 (1971), the actor Marlon Brando alleged that members of the Oakland Police Department, motivated by racial animus, shot and killed an unarmed member of the Black Panthers who was in the process of surrendering peacefully. The president of the Oakland Police Officers Association sued Brando for libel on behalf of his organization. The court treated the president’s suit as one brought directly by the association, but held that the organization had no right of action. The court said:

We recognize, of course, that an unincorporated association, such as the OPOA, can be defamed. The only trouble with OPOA’s ability to state a cause of action is simply that there is absolutely nothing in any innuendo or inducement pleaded which by any stretch of the imagination can be construed as defamatory of the organization.Id.

In Michigan United Conservation Clubs v. CBS News, 485 F.Supp. 893 (W.D.Mich. 1980), the named plaintiff and several individual hunters alleged that a television broadcast about hunters, part of which had been filmed in Michigan, defamed them. The court ruled that even if it were to assume that the broadcast had defamed some individual hunters, “… the indirect injury which [the organizational plaintiff] claim[s] to have suffered as a result of this would not be compensable.” Id. at 900.

In addition, in Mikilonski v. Burt Reynolds Production Co., 10 Mass.App. 895, 409 N.E.2d 1324 (1980) (rescript) the court held that the Polish-American Guardian Society had no right to sue the defendant on account of allegedly defamatory statements about Poles he made in a motion picture, because the society was not “the object of the alleged defamations.” Id. Like the Oakland Police association, the Michigan hunters group, and the Polish-American society, CSC fails to state a cause of action: Flynn’s statements refer to individual Scientologists, not to the organization they belong to. See also Novick v. Hearst Corporation, 278 F.Supp. 277, 281 (D.Md.1968); Cohn v. National Broadcasting Co., Inc., 414 N.Y.S.2d 906, 909, 67 A.D.2d 140 (1979), aff’d, 430 N.Y. S.2d 265, 50 N.Y.2d 885, 408 N.E.2d 672 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1022, 101 S.Ct. 590, 66 L.Ed.2d 484.

The cases the plaintiff relies on do not alter this conclusion. In Neiman-Marcus Co. v. Lait, 107 F.Supp. 96 (S.D.N.Y.1952), the court permitted the corporate plaintiff to sue for defamatory statements published about its employees. Id. at 101. The statements at issue there, however, suggested that the corporation had intentionally recruited persons of alleged immoral character, and the court noted that “… it cannot be said as a matter of law that a corporation cannot be damaged in a business way by a publication that it employs seriously undesirable personnel.” Id.

In DiGiorgio Fruit Corp. v. American Federation of Labor, 30 Cal.Rptr. 350, 355, 215 Cal.App.2d 560 (Dist.Ct.App.1963), the court permitted a corporation to sue, but the facts indicate clearly that the publication in question referred to the plaintiff, as a corporation (if not by precise name), and criticized it as such. Finally, in Sullivan v. Affiliated Publications, 8 Med.L.Rptr. 1654 (Mass.Super.Ct.1982), another case in which a corporate libel plaintiff was allowed to proceed, the article referred frequently to the names by which the corporate plaintiff is popularly known.[2]

*270 Although the plaintiff appears not to raise the matter specifically, I have also considered the question whether the CSC may bring a libel action derivatively on behalf of its members. It is settled that a not-for-profit organization may sometimes sue to vindicate its members’ rights. See, e.g., Church of Scientology of California v. Cazares, 638 F.2d 1272, 1279 (5th Cir.1981). But in order to do so in a libel action, those members must have rights which they could assert in an individual action. Id.; see also Michigan United Conservation Clubs v. CBS News, 485 F.Supp. at 900. Here, no individual Scientologists possess such rights. Arcand v. Evening Call Publishing Co., 567 F.2d at 1164-65. Therefore, the CSC may not sue derivatively.

Accordingly, because the defendant’s statements are not capable of being understood as having been made “of and concerning” the plaintiff, the defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is granted.

SO ORDERED.

NOTES

[1] The defendant also argues that the statements are expressions of opinion and hence not actionable and asserts, in addition, that he was privileged to make the statements because they relate directly to a pending judicial proceeding. My resolution of the defendant’s first ground for dismissal makes it unnecessary to consider these arguments.

[2] I have also reviewed those cases which address the “of and concerning” question in the context of suits brought by the CSC or another official branch of the Scientology movement. In California Church of Scientology v. Cazares, 638 F.2d 1272 (5th Cir.1981), the allegedly defamatory remarks were clearly addressed at the CSC itself. In Church of Scientology v. Adams, 584 F.2d 893 (9th Cir.1978), the court, despite its suggestion “… there is serious doubt that the articles refer to the [CSC],” did not reach the “of and concerning” question on the merits. And in Church of Scientology v. Siegelman, 481 F.Supp. 866 (S.D.N.Y.1979), the court did not quote the language which it concluded raised a factual question regarding whether the plaintiff official branches of the Scientology movement, including the CSC, has been defamed. Again, then, these cases do not in my judgment alter the analysis above.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MAZZONE, District Judge.

This is a libel action. The plaintiff, the Church of Scientology of California (“CSC”), seeks damages from the defendant, Michael J. Flynn, for allegedly defamatory statements made by Flynn and subsequently *267 published in a Florida newspaper. The matter is before the Court on the defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

Flynn, a Boston attorney, made the statements in November, 1982, in a telephone interview with a reporter from the Clearwater (Florida) Times. The statements concern Flynn’s attempt to appeal a contempt order issued by a Florida court in litigation against the CSC. The complaint alleges that the following portions of the story are defamatory:

Michael Flynn, Clearwater’s consultant on the Church of Scientology, contended Friday that Scientologists have infiltrated the Volusia County court system and stolen two checks that he sent to appeal a court decision here.* * * * * *Speaking from his Boston office, lawyer Flynn said he mailed two checks, one for $50 and another for $10, to Volusia, and claimed that he even has the bank records to prove it.”Someone at that end infiltrated the courthouse and intercepted the mailed check,” he said. “Someone like a Scientologist.”The filing fee is very important, Flynn said, because it assures him the right to appeal the contempt order.”It’s ridiculous to think I wouldn’t pay a $60 filing fee,” the Boston lawyer continued, adding that he has several deposits at the First National Bank of Boston and plenty of money in them.”If you check into this in depth, you’ll find that something’s afoot in Volusia County,” Flynn went on. He has noted before the Durden and Scientology attorneys are “longtime friends.”The complaint further alleges that the story conveys “the false and defamatory meaning that plaintiff, through its members, had improperly and corruptly become involved with the judicial system, had wrongfully interfered with the U.S. mails and had stolen from the U.S. mails and the Courthouse.”

Flynn urges that the action must be dismissed chiefly because the allegedly libelous statements are, as a matter of law, incapable of being understood as referring to the plaintiff.[1]

As a preliminary matter, it is necessary to make a choice-of-law. I look to Massachusetts conflict rules to decide which state’s law should govern this action. Klaxon v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co., 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941). Whether I apply the doctrine of lex loci delecti, see Brogie v. Vogel, 348 Mass. 619, 621, 205 N.E.2d 234 (1965), or the interests analysis embodied in Restatement (Second) of Conflicts of Law § 1818 (1971), see Pevoski v. Pevoski, 371 Mass. 358, 360, 358 N.E.2d 416 (1976), the result is the same: Florida law applies. The publication of the libel occurred in Florida; thus, that state is the place where all the elements of the tort alleged were first present. See Strogoff v. Motor Sales Co., 302 Mass. 345, 347, 18 N.E.2d 1016 (1939). Florida contacts also predominate, as that state is the place of injury, the place of much of the relevant conduct, and the place where the relationship between Flynn and the CSC, at least as far as this action is concerned, is centered. See In Re Air Crash Disaster in Boston, Massachusetts on July 31, 1973, 399 F.Supp. 1106, 1111-1112 (D.Mass.1975). In any event, however, Florida law provides no precedent closely on point. Therefore, in deciding whether Flynn’s statements are reasonably capable of being understood as referring to the plaintiff, I look to general principles of libel law on the assumption that Florida’s law is in accord. Cf. Arcand v. Evening Call Publishing Co., 567 F.2d 1163, 1164 (1st Cir. 1977) (Where Massachusetts law provided no clear answer to “group libel” *268 question, Court of Appeals “proceed[ed] on the assumption that Massachusetts law would be in accord with the current state of the authorities, i.e., would not occupy an eccentric minority position.”). The parties have done the same.

But a corporation, like a private individual, cannot prevail in a libel action unless the allegedly defamatory statement was published “of and concerning” the corporation. Gilbert Shoe Co. v. Rumpf Publishing Co., 112 F.Supp. 228, 229 (D.Mass. 1953); Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 561, 564 (1977). Whether a corporation’s standing in the community was actually diminished is not relevant if the publication at issue did not falsely charge the corporation itself with some kind of impropriety: “One who is not himself libelled cannot recover even though he has been injured by the libel published concerning another.” Gilbert Shoe Co. v. Rumpf Publishing Co., 112 F.Supp. at 229 (officer or stockholder of a corporation who is not personally libelled has no right to recover for a libel published of the corporation). Likewise, an allegation that a defendant made a statement, intending to reduce public respect for a person does not, in the absence of a libelous charge directed at that person, present a triable issue. Corrigan v. Bobbs-Merril Co., 228 N.Y. 58, 126 N.E. 260, 262 (1920) (“The question is not so much who was aimed at as who was hit.”).

With these general principles in mind, I turn to the central question presented by this motion: whether the defendant’s statements are reasonably capable of being understood as having been made “of and concerning” the plaintiff. In particular, I must consider whether the defendant’s accusation that “Scientologists” or “`some-one like a Scientologists'” stole his filing fee is capable of being viewed as a libel of the CSC.

For the purposes of this inquiry, I assume, as the plaintiff asserts, that the plaintiff would be able to prove at trial that the CSC is the official branch of the Scientology movement most active in Clear-water, Florida. Thus, I assume that a reference that is capable of being viewed as concerning any of the Scientology movement’s not-for-profit religious organizations would, given the facts and circumstances of this case, refer to the CSC.

Nevertheless, I conclude that the statements here at issue cannot support a libel action brought by the CSC. Flynn’s statements assert that an individual or, perhaps, a small group of individuals, infiltrated the Volusia County courthouse and stole his filing fee. The statement was directed at an individual or a few individuals, not a not-for-profit corporation. Had the defendant said, for example, that it was the practice of the CSC to train its members to infiltrate the courthouse, or reward them for doing so, a different question would be presented. But he did not. His statement was directed at the actions of one or a few individual Scientologists, not at the governing body of the Church of Scientology most active in the Clearwater area. Accusing members of any religious organization of criminal activity is hardly likely to reflect well on the religion’s official organs, but the fact that the CSC’s reputation in the community may have been diminished by virtue of Flynn’s charges against an anonymous individual or individuals does not vest in CSC a right to sue for libel. That conclusion follows naturally from the established principle, noted above, that one who is injured by the libel of another has no right of action. Gilbert Shoe Co. v. Rumpf Publishing Co., 112 F.Supp. at 229.

The case law supports the view that this action should be dismissed. In Mullins v.*269Brando, 13 Cal.App.3d 409, 423, 91 Cal. Rptr. 796, 805 (1970), cert. denied sub nom. Brando v. Coffman, 403 U.S. 923, 91 S.Ct. 2231, 29 L.Ed.2d 701 (1971), the actor Marlon Brando alleged that members of the Oakland Police Department, motivated by racial animus, shot and killed an unarmed member of the Black Panthers who was in the process of surrendering peacefully. The president of the Oakland Police Officers Association sued Brando for libel on behalf of his organization. The court treated the president’s suit as one brought directly by the association, but held that the organization had no right of action. The court said:

We recognize, of course, that an unincorporated association, such as the OPOA, can be defamed. The only trouble with OPOA’s ability to state a cause of action is simply that there is absolutely nothing in any innuendo or inducement pleaded which by any stretch of the imagination can be construed as defamatory of the organization.Id.

In Michigan United Conservation Clubs v. CBS News, 485 F.Supp. 893 (W.D.Mich. 1980), the named plaintiff and several individual hunters alleged that a television broadcast about hunters, part of which had been filmed in Michigan, defamed them. The court ruled that even if it were to assume that the broadcast had defamed some individual hunters, “… the indirect injury which [the organizational plaintiff] claim[s] to have suffered as a result of this would not be compensable.” Id. at 900.

In addition, in Mikilonski v. Burt Reynolds Production Co., 10 Mass.App. 895, 409 N.E.2d 1324 (1980) (rescript) the court held that the Polish-American Guardian Society had no right to sue the defendant on account of allegedly defamatory statements about Poles he made in a motion picture, because the society was not “the object of the alleged defamations.” Id. Like the Oakland Police association, the Michigan hunters group, and the Polish-American society, CSC fails to state a cause of action: Flynn’s statements refer to individual Scientologists, not to the organization they belong to. See also Novick v. Hearst Corporation, 278 F.Supp. 277, 281 (D.Md.1968); Cohn v. National Broadcasting Co., Inc., 414 N.Y.S.2d 906, 909, 67 A.D.2d 140 (1979), aff’d, 430 N.Y. S.2d 265, 50 N.Y.2d 885, 408 N.E.2d 672 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1022, 101 S.Ct. 590, 66 L.Ed.2d 484.

The cases the plaintiff relies on do not alter this conclusion. In Neiman-Marcus Co. v. Lait, 107 F.Supp. 96 (S.D.N.Y.1952), the court permitted the corporate plaintiff to sue for defamatory statements published about its employees. Id. at 101. The statements at issue there, however, suggested that the corporation had intentionally recruited persons of alleged immoral character, and the court noted that “… it cannot be said as a matter of law that a corporation cannot be damaged in a business way by a publication that it employs seriously undesirable personnel.” Id.

In DiGiorgio Fruit Corp. v. American Federation of Labor, 30 Cal.Rptr. 350, 355, 215 Cal.App.2d 560 (Dist.Ct.App.1963), the court permitted a corporation to sue, but the facts indicate clearly that the publication in question referred to the plaintiff, as a corporation (if not by precise name), and criticized it as such. Finally, in Sullivan v. Affiliated Publications, 8 Med.L.Rptr. 1654 (Mass.Super.Ct.1982), another case in which a corporate libel plaintiff was allowed to proceed, the article referred frequently to the names by which the corporate plaintiff is popularly known.[2]

*270 Although the plaintiff appears not to raise the matter specifically, I have also considered the question whether the CSC may bring a libel action derivatively on behalf of its members. It is settled that a not-for-profit organization may sometimes sue to vindicate its members’ rights. See, e.g., Church of Scientology of California v. Cazares, 638 F.2d 1272, 1279 (5th Cir.1981). But in order to do so in a libel action, those members must have rights which they could assert in an individual action. Id.; see also Michigan United Conservation Clubs v. CBS News, 485 F.Supp. at 900. Here, no individual Scientologists possess such rights. Arcand v. Evening Call Publishing Co., 567 F.2d at 1164-65. Therefore, the CSC may not sue derivatively.

Accordingly, because the defendant’s statements are not capable of being understood as having been made “of and concerning” the plaintiff, the defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is granted.

SO ORDERED.

NOTES

[1] The defendant also argues that the statements are expressions of opinion and hence not actionable and asserts, in addition, that he was privileged to make the statements because they relate directly to a pending judicial proceeding. My resolution of the defendant’s first ground for dismissal makes it unnecessary to consider these arguments.

[2] I have also reviewed those cases which address the “of and concerning” question in the context of suits brought by the CSC or another official branch of the Scientology movement. In California Church of Scientology v. Cazares, 638 F.2d 1272 (5th Cir.1981), the allegedly defamatory remarks were clearly addressed at the CSC itself. In Church of Scientology v. Adams, 584 F.2d 893 (9th Cir.1978), the court, despite its suggestion “… there is serious doubt that the articles refer to the [CSC],” did not reach the “of and concerning” question on the merits. And in Church of Scientology v. Siegelman, 481 F.Supp. 866 (S.D.N.Y.1979), the court did not quote the language which it concluded raised a factual question regarding whether the plaintiff official branches of the Scientology movement, including the CSC, has been defamed. Again, then, these cases do not in my judgment alter the analysis above.

In writing the attached affidavit I wish to make a brief statement about the religion to which I belong. The Church of Scientology has a long history of creating freedom of thought. It has created a great deal of good in the society for a number of years. It has fought against the depersonalizers (psychiatrists) that have tried to destroy minds. It must be realized that Scientology tries to create good and has no interest in destroying others. The psychiatrists (depersonalizers) who work against the good of Man have no right to create obstacles to efforts to explore the dark places in men’s minds. They have no right to destroy freedom of thought just because they wish to dominate.

Scientology has worked ambitiously over the years and has achieved splendid things in the fields of education and drug rehabilitation. It has wisely used its resources in order to bring good to the society. The energy of the church used in bringing about good conditions is well known to all of the parishioners and to many opinion leaders outside the church. The church will expend the time and the effort to bring about a goal of “a world without insanity, without war, without criminals and where honest men will have rights.”

As a religion, Scientology has brought reason into philosophy, health into peoples’ lives and taught people how to survive. It is our intent to help religion and to help people. Therefore it is necessary that the following piece be written to describe the protracted conflict against the good that Scientology represents so that courts can understand the actual issues at hand. Whatever the outcome, Scientology will continue to be a symbol of good.

I, Heber Jentzsch, hereby declare and state as follows:

This declaration reviews in detail information contained in sworn deposition testimony, documents authored by or for Michael Flynn himself, his brother Kevin, or other FAMCO (Flynn Associates Management Corporation) employees, court proceedings, newspaper reports and other sources which shed a different light on Flynn’s and FAMCO’s intentions than they would have the public believe is true. Many of these materials are set forth as exhibits and explained or examined below. It is submitted that this material shows that the Flynn brothers used and intended to use FAMCO in a manner which one could conclude was definitely manipulative and self-serving, and even illegal.

1. The purpose of this declaration is to delineate for the courts the pattern of harassment and abusive conduct instigated and executed against the Churches of Scientology by Boston lawyer Michael J. Flynn and a number of co-conspirators operating as a front group called the Flynn Associates Management Corporation (FAMCO). Said harassment and abusive conduct included, inter alia: 1) conspiracy in the form of a moneymaking scheme in which Flynn and FAMCO promised investors up to a 400 per cent quick return on their dollars; 2) intention to abuse the law by the building of FAMCO, a front group, in order to sell shares to finance litigation; 3) collaboration with forces trying to destroy freedom of Religion and Churches in American life and close work with others engaged in the destruction of belief in America; 4) collaboration with and funding of agents and operatives using brutal “deprogramming” techniques; 5) extensive, personal and malicious harassment of

-2-

individual members of the Church of Scientology and of members of the Church in general in order to deprive them of their legal rights; 6) abuse of the judicial process by inundating the courts with massive docket filings as well as apparently frivolous, unfounded and duplicative lawsuits; 7) use of lies in order to manipulate media and government and thus influence pending litigation; 8) use of libel, forgery and other improper means in order to influence pending litigation; 9) repeated and frequent fraudulent representations of activities of himself and associates.

2. Having worked in the office which coordinates legal affairs for the Church of Scientology International for approximately the last two years, I am familiar with Michael Flynn and FAMCO and their activities and have personal knowledge or information and belief as to all charges and allegations as contained herein and Mr. Flynn’s opposition to Scientology’s creation of Religious Freedom.

3. On August 28, 1980, FAMCO’s incorporation papers were filed with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.2 The incorporators, as listed on the Articles of Organization3, were Kevin Mark Flynn, Cheryl Flynn, wife of Kevin, and Michael J. Flynn. FAMCO’s stated purposes 3 were as follows:

“1. To carry on and entertain any business, undertaking, transaction, or operation commonly carried on or undertaken by capitalists, promoters, financiers, contractors, merchants, commission men, and agents, and in the course of such business to draw, accept, indorse, acquire, and sell all or any negotiable or transferable instruments and securities, debentures, bonds, notes and bills of exchange.

“3. To form, promote, and assist financially or otherwise, companies, syndicates, partnerships, and associations of all kinds, and to give any guaranty in connection therewith or otherwise for the payment of money, or for the performance of any obligations or undertaking.

“4. To acquire, improve, manage, work, develop, exercise all rights in respect of, lease, mortgage, sell, dispose of, turn to account, and otherwise deal with property of all kinds, and in particular business concerns and undertakings.”

4. An analysis of documents and sworn depositions from numerous persons reveals that the actual intent of FAMCO was utterly different from its stated purpose. The Flynn brothers instead used FAMCO as a vehicle to destroy. In addition to:

1. Sell shares in hopes of rapidly raising $180,000 to finance litigation against the Church. A “get rich quick” scheme promising $4 for for every $1 invested was designed to lure investors.

2. Solicit clients in hopes of having 1,000 lawsuits in progress against the Church by the end of 1981.

3. Solicit co-counsel based on a fee-splitting system.

4. Arrange for new clients through oppressive, forcible “depersonalizations” designed to make Church members betray their religion and then bring suit for ostensible “damages.”

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5. Manipulate the news media in order to attempt to create poisonous publicity problems so that the Church would be forced into a settlement.

6. Instigate prejudicial government attacks on the Church’s Religion by means of lies and false reports.

7. Destroy the future of the Church financially by creating a large number of individual lawsuits to victimize the Church in inconvenient jurisdictions, solicited illegally using a single person “class action” suit as a front.

5. Flynn has repeatedly sought court orders in federal and state court which would prevent the church from using these documents. These efforts have failed time and again. Indeed, in April 1982, Flynn sought a preliminary injunction against use of these documents. His request was denied by the court less that one week later. The Church been using the documents in order to show Flynn’s campaign against First Amendment and the Church of Scientology5 shows that three separate courts have upheld the Church’s use of the documents.

6. The numerous acts against the Religion of the Church of Scientology undertaken by Flynn and his brother, Kevin, via the FAMCO front group, are described in this declaration and are based in part on the poisonous FAMCO documents. The FAMCO documents show that Michael and Kevin Flynn’s attempts to perpetrate one of the greatest abuses upon the courts in the history of modern jurisprudence have destroyed countless thousands of hours of court and lawyer time. Their numerous misrepresentations are described in detail in this declaration. Psychiatrist John Clark was part of FAMCO’s operation. Clark, who has published poisonous articles against religion in The American Atheist

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and elsewhere, was used as FAMCO’s propagandist. Michael Flynn’s role was summoning up lies, hatred and invective and targetting them to destroy a religion. Michael and Kevin Flynn and psychiatrist Clark worked together to destroy freedom of religion and to bring a First Amendment institution to its knees and to plunder its assets in order to greedily line the Flynns’ own pockets.

7. In viewing many pages of documents dealing with FAMCO’s and the Flynns’ work against the Religion of the Church of Scientology, one overriding theme emerges: moneymaking; the FAMCO front group was to be used in an “all out” effort against the Church of Scientology in order to rip off upwards of $200 million. As described in “Scientology – Review and Planning” 6 and other FAMCO documents, FAMCO was started as a chaos machine to sell shares in the litigation and to solicit and exploit gullible and money-motivated co-counsel.

8. Although Michael Flynn has tried to escape blame for FAMCO by laying it at his brother’s doorstep, the facts remain that 1) Michael Flynn was listed as an incorporator on FAMCO’s Articles of Organization7; 2) Michael Flynn has pursued to the letter the basic FAMCO strategy as outlined in the FAMCO documents. There were four basic goals in this strategy, all aimed to create unhappiness and destroy religious freedom. As shown in “Scientology – Review and Planning”8, these four basic goals were:

1. Closing Scientology organizations

2. Adverse media

3. Adverse public reaction

4. Federal and state attacks.

The FAMCO plan had as its “primary purpose … to position ourselves

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such that to fight us would be cost ineffective.” Attacks against the religion would come from “feeding” media and governments with false and misleading information about the Church and thus influencing them to undertake investigations of the Church. Although Michael Flynn has vigorously denied the implementation of the FAMCO plan as described in “Scientology – Review and Planning,” his actions belie this. As is clearly demonstrated in this declaration and attached exhibits, Flynn has been caught pressing an all-out assault to destroy the existence of Religion the Church of Scientology in the four areas listed above. Flynn’s associates Thomas Hoffman and Thomas Greene have been in the thick of the litigation with him through the years; they knew of FAMCO and its plans yet apparently did nothing to steer away from the course set by Michael and Kevin Flynn.

9. Michael and Kevin Flynn created in FAMCO perhaps the only business venture in the history of the United States openly dedicated to the destruction of a First Amendment institution. The attached proposal, called the “Class Action Case Development Program,”9 was sent by Michael Flynn with a cover letter to numerous attorneys around the country in hopes of getting them to join his anti-religious extortionistic war. The proposal forecast “one thousand lawsuits [against the Church of Scientology] … by the end of 1981.”9

10. Solicitation took various forms, including personal sales pressure by Michael Flynn. Clearwater, Fla. businessman Jim Grey has stated in a sworn affidavit that Michael Flynn visited him in his office and endeavored to enlist him to sell shares in litigation. Flynn offered Grey the position of “Trustee of … FAMCO in the Clearwater area.” As described in his affidavit11, Grey was told by

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Flynn that his duties as trustee would be to “receive, raise and disburse monies which would be used to file suits against the Church of Scientology around the country and therefore break the Church financially.” (Emphasis added.)

11. Another example of FAMCO’s outrageous activities is shown in Exhibit 712, a memorandum from an attorney, Chuck Diamond. The memorandum from Mr. Diamond illustrates what Flynn represents FAMCO to be all about. The memo asserts that Diamond’s old schoolmate, Flynn, “has made a substantial living suing the Church of Scientology.” The memorandum indicates that there would be openings for “lawyers in the Los Angeles area who would be willing to undertake the joint prosecution of some of these claims [Flynn’s clients’] on a contingent fee basis.” It was apparently not mentioned to Mr. Diamond that neither Flynn nor FAMCO ever won a cent from the Church in nearly four years of litigation, and thus Flynn’s “prior successes” alluded to in the memo are nonexistent; they are in fact complete and utter delusions. An attorney beguiled into “joining forces” with Flynn because of these “prior successes” and the lure of “a substantial living” as mentioned in the Diamond memo would have linked up based on totally false information and promises. The term “church-busters” as used in the memorandum is appropriate to the context; FAMCO’s campaign against the Church comes across as a vigorous attempt to harm and destroy a religion.

12. Flynn’s operation against the Church of Scientology was also broadly implemented in the Clearwater, Fla. area, where he actively spread malicious lies and false reports. As stated in the attached declaration13, Virginia Snyder met with a Clearwater city official and was informed that Michael Flynn had said he hoped and

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expected “to get 10 or 12 lawsuits ‘going’ against the Church [in the Clearwater area] as soon as possible.” The official explained that “Flynn’s strategy was that if there were enough lawsuits brought against the Church with accompanying expenses that would exceed the Church’s income, this would result in achieving the goal of breaking the Church financially.” (Emphasis added.)

13. Michael Flynn made bold and sweeping promises to those who might possibly work for or invest in FAMCO. An April 22, 1981 letter14 dangled “the opportunity to earn substantial monies” as a lure to potential co-counsel in Flynn’s cases against the Church. Another FAMCO document15 promised FAMCO “investors” between $2 and $4 for every $1 invested in FAMCO shares.

14. Up to Dec. 13, 1979, Flynn’s law practice had centered on medical malpractice. This changed when Flynn filed a so-called “class action” suit against the Church of Scientology of California. Strangely, this “class action” suit had just one party, a disgruntled former Scientologist by the name of Lavenda Van Schaick.

15. While the “class action” suit was pending, Flynn initiated a series of virtually identical individual lawsuits. Using the Lavenda Van Schaick “class action” suit as a front, Flynn solicited clients who ultimately filed separate lawsuits in remote, inconvenient jurisdictions rather than joining the single member “class.” These suits were brought by 27 different persons even though, as stated in the attached affidavit by attorney Nancy Gertner16, the claims “involve virtually identical complaints, causes of actions, and indeed, verbatim pleadings” as the original, one-person “class action” suit. It is in keeping with Michael Flynn’s misleading tactics that he has not filed the motion in

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the Van Schaick suit which would legally establish the existence of the “class” claimed to require the “class action” suit. Any good attorney can tell you that filing such a motion is not a difficult process, but winning the motion requires that Flynn satisfy very particular rules. It certainly seems likely that Flynn is afraid to file the motion because he will lose it. Then FAMCO will be unable to hustle more lawsuits using the “class action” suit as bait.

16. The Gertner affidavit also pointed out how Flynn’s suits were “designed to tax the Church of Scientology to the breaking point, to inconvenience and harass that institution so that it will be forced to settle with counsel for the plaintiffs [i.e., Flynn and his associates] and to maximize the profits that will accrue to the lawyers.” (Emphasis added.)

17. As part of Flynn’s “Class Action Case Development Program”9, he even planned “the organization of international lawsuits in England, Sweden and other countries.”9

18. In the United States, Flynn planned an enormous volume of litigation in the form of what he called “turnkey” or pre-packaged lawsuits. Via FAMCO, aggressive, far-reaching solicitations were made to attract attorneys to join Flynn’s anti-Scientology campaign. “We provide the clients, the damages, the pleadings, the memoranda, the documents, the witnesses and virtually everything required for an instantaneous trial with little or no necessity for discovery,” boasted a FAMCO promotion proposal to attorneys19. “This preparation has taken thousands and thousands of man hours of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the proposal claimed.

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19. These ostensibly valuable fruits of FAMCO’s labors were promised to a handful of lawyers who would choose to link up with Michael Flynn in his aggressive attacks against the Church and its religion. Wayne B. Hollingsworth is an example of an attorney that has sought to work with Michael Flynn. As alleged in the attached affidavits and complaints, Hollingsworth repeatedly reneged on agreements with his former partner, attorney Gary A. Pappas. According to Pappas’ affidavits, Hollingsworth made off with key assets of their firm and also wrongly appropriated approximately $750,000 from collections and accounts receivable. Pappas is suing Hollingsworth for an accounting of the assets of their partnership; Pappas claims a 50 per cent interest in the partnership, which he estimates had assets totalling $980,000. Pappas succeeded in getting attachments placed on at least $200,000 worth of Hollingsworth’s property.20 Hollingsworth is also being sued by attorney Philip F. Mulvey, Jr. for activities that sound very similar. According to Mulvey’s affidavit21, Hollingsworth violated their employment agreement, taking for himself in July 1982 monies Mulvey had won in one of his personal cases. Mulvey protested Hollingsworth’s action, and when Hollingsworth insisted on keeping the substantial sum Mulvey was due, Mulvey indicated he would not continue their association. He began packing his files and personal items, left the office briefly and came back to find his personal belongings in a pile outside the office and his files “missing.” Mulvey is suing to recover his files, his money and for other damages as described in22.

20. “Turnkey publicity” was another documented abuse of FAMCO. FAMCO was to provide a “press package” of poisonous material to

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lawyers who agreed to participate in “turnkey” lawsuits. FAMCO documents23 show that manipulation of the media was vital to the success of the litigation; “Future Adverse Publicity” was to coincide with the “Filing of future cases by city and state,” and consultations were promised on “effective handling of media.”

21. Adverse publicity was a major weapon in Flynn’s attack on the Church as graphically demonstrated by the five-page summary attached as Exhibit 14.24 The multi-pronged anti-Scientology media thrust planned and implemented by Flynn and FAMCO included newspapers, national magazines, wire services, local and national television programs — even provisions for “Book and Film Rights” — all aimed at “Loss of Income and Business” for the religion of the Church of Scientology, as stated on the document.

22. In effect bragging that he had the media in his pocket, Flynn claimed responsibility for an incredible amount of publicity adverse to the Church. FAMCO documents listed fifteen separate detailed examples under a section entitled “National Media attention attributable to our office.”23, (Emphasis added.) These include a highly defamatory segment on “60 Minutes,” an article in Reader’s Digest in which Flynn’s name appeared as an advertisement for future suits, wire stories on both Associated Press and United Press International and a sensationalized article in the National Enquirer.

23. The FAMCO documents show beyond the shadow of any doubts that Flynn’s motives went beyond merely pressuring the Church of Scientology to settle his client’s alleged claims against it. Thus, in a section captioned “Loss of Business to Scientology” in24, Flynn called for an “increased rate of defection” among existing members

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of the Religion of Scientology, and described how he proposed to bring that about, including efforts to “influence” Church members “by [a] continual onslaught of bad publicity.” It was also hoped to create a deterioration in the Church’s image so that “new membership prospects are impaired.”23

24. The campaign has gotten down to specific tactical targets; as described in Paragraph 8 of this declaration, Michael Flynn has called for specific destructive actions against the rapidly growing Church, including loss of income and closing down five separate Scientology organizations in the United States. One of these so targetted is the Church’s splendidly large international training center in Clearwater, Fla. 23

25. The strategy of endeavoring to bring on prejudiced governmental attacks, spelled out in the “Scientology – Review and Planning” document29, surfaced again in a FAMCO document describing the “March [1981] Conference.”30 From this document, Flynn’s plans to coordinate and promote government and media attacks are obvious. Listed under the heading of “Lead Counsel” are “representatives of Internal Revenue Service and United States Attorney’s Office.” These “Lead Counsel” are described in the conference notes as “attornies [sic] experienced in handling Scientology litigation.”

26. In an overt display suggesting utter contempt for the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment, Michael and Kevin Flynn plotted how the power of government could be used prejudicially against the Church. Kevin Flynn wrote in the March Conference notes30 that “issues [at the planned March conference] include … integration

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of government and private sources” for data collection and exchange. He proposed “development of routine litigation support and consultation service between private and government attornies [sic] engaged in Scientology litigation.” In the same seminar, he included a segment on “integration of organizational file data” — this data to come from not only the IRS, but from several other U.S. governmental departments as well. Of note is that Michael Flynn had worked in an IRS office just a few short years earlier.

27. “First Amendment” is listed as a seminar issue on the “March Conference” document: another issue listed in the same section is “state court jurisdiction over Church of Scientology of California.” Flynn’s attitude over the years has been to view the First Amendment as a mighty barrier to be surmounted in his campaign against the Church, so it is not surprising to see these seminar issues tied together. Nor is it surprising to see that the chief purpose of the “March Conference,” as stated on the document, was to “establish efficient communications, data collection and data exchange among government and private attorneys presently engaged in litigation with Scientology organizations and investigation of Scientology activities.” (Emphasis added.) These documents make clear that the Flynn brothers’ FAMCO, set up as a profit-making corporation, was proposing and seeking direct government collusion to destroy the existence of a recognized religious group.

28. The “Class Action Case Development Program,”9, enumerates the prejudicial government agencies and “numerous media” Flynn and FAMCO nave been in contact with regarding the Religion of Scientology, and he boasts that in a certain IRS case involving the Church of Scientology “most of the individuals

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testifying are our clients.” It seems obvious that the “all out,” the anything goes strategy as described in “Scientology – Planning and Review,” was put into effect, despite Flynn’s vehement denials.

29. The same sleazy document boasts that “Since the initiation of the [Lavenda van Schaick] class action suit, our group has generated extensive media attention about Scientology including publication of an extremely cogent Reader’s Digest article, programs on ’60 Minutes,’ ‘Prime Time,’ forthcoming programs on ABC, as well as various local television programs throughout the country and thousands of newspaper articles.” Flynn’s own words defeat him here, as once again it is seen that the “all out” destructive FAMCO strategy against the Scientology Religion was put into effect.

30. Part of FAMCO’s “all out” strategy is demonstrated by the effort to incite federal and state governmental attacks against the Church. Attorney Stephen P. Delinsky, former head of the criminal division of the Massachusetts State Attorney General’s Office, was recently quoted in the May 31, 1963 Boston Globe as being sharply critical of Flynn for “trying to use a possible prosecution of Scientologists to assist his own civil litigation.”33 Such efforts by Flynn were candidly described by attorney Delinsky: “I felt that was not the proper use of the criminal justice system, and I felt uncomfortable.” Flynn has tried the same technique of lighting legal brush fires elsewhere. In Arizona, it recently came to light that Flynn had spread the rumor that an investigation was underway in the state, and that indictments would be handed down on faithful Scientologists by the

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Attorney General’s Office there. It appears that Flynn, through his favorite client, Ronald DeWolf, was the source of this fictional information. In lieu of having proper cases, and pursuing them according to established legal procedures, it appears that Flynn prefers to launch a whisper campaign that an investigation of the Scientology religion is occurring and that indictments will be handed down soon and arrests will be made. This occurred in Arizona, in Boston, in Florida, in Los Angeles and even in open court in Riverside, Calif,34. Once the poisonous rumor has been launched, his clients or others are induced to call a key government office in the area where the investigation is supposedly underway, and make unfounded complaints about the Scientology Religion. Repeated efforts to stir up investigations of the hugely successful Scientology Religion and to deliberately inflame public opinion against it have occurred in several areas. Such endeavors enhance Flynn’s chances in whatever litigation might be underway by poisoning the public’s understanding and opinions. Once the rumor of “governmental investigation” gets going, the next step is the tactic of telling faithful members of the Church that indictments will be handed down and that arrests will be made.

31. A document prepared in early 1981 showed that Flynn’s plans were such that he looked to get more than $200 million from the various suits he had filed against the Church.35

32. Progress in his various cases did not go as Flynn expected. On June 2, 1981, he wrote to one of the Church’s counsel, Jay D. Roth, and proposed to settle “all existing cases” for $1.6 million. Included in Flynn’s offer was a threat. Unless the Church

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made a proposal to him “within the next 14 days,” it could expect an “additional 8-10 cases … commenced in Washington, New York and Los Angeles.”36 Fifteen days later, he wrote again to Jay Roth, this time saying that he was planning “20 additional law suits” and that unless a settlement were made quickly, “we will be left with the sole option of increasing the litigation as rapidly and in as great a number as possible.”37 Such a demand, coupled with consequent filings, suggested both a serious abuse of the judicial process and an apparent proposal to sell his clients down the river. Having ostensibly obtained the trust of 20 additional “clients” and convinced them that it was in their best interests to file suit against the Church, he was nonetheless proposing to drop them cold in order to get money by settling cases already pending, in effect using the existence of these future claims to settle pending claims. It might be readily deduced that Flynn’s real aims were not in line with the best interests of his clients, whatever he might be telling them.

33. The Church’s legal department discovered something that could account for Flynn’s strange behavior in working against his clients’ best interests as well as against the Church. In 1979, prior to the filing of the first suit against the Church — the Lavenda Van Schaick single claimant “class action” suit — Flynn had been in touch with psychiatrist John Clark. Clark heads a psychiatric front group called the American Family Foundation (AFF), a group whose name belies the fact that it has supported violent depersonalizings and brainwashing techniques to destroy freedom of thought in order to bring about enforced religious “conversions.”

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Clark’s anti-religious stance is well known, in 1981, Clark’s attacks on new religions appeared in a Massachusetts newspaper article38 which quoted him as saying that “Born Again Christians are playing with fire.” More recently, in 1982, Clark described some activities of certain Roman Catholic orders as “culty.”39 Clark’s intention to destroy religious freedom and create hate appears quite clear from these and other statements.

34. Investigation revealed that the Clark-Flynn relationship began as early as mid-1979 and that the two men had met “many times,” according to Flynn himself.40 In early November 1979, Church attorney Ralph Sullivan reported that Michael Flynn had implied to him that John Clark was planning on financing LaVenda Van Schaick’s suit in whole or in part. In the same conversation, Flynn told Sullivan that Van Schaick was “debriefing” to a psychiatrist, and he implied that Clark was the one.

35. The covert extent of the Clark-Flynn collaboration was demonstrated a short while later when the Lavenda Van Schaick “class action” suit was filed, when Flynn filed the suit, he quoted Clark’s “dissociation” theory virtually verbatim within the complaint. Curiously, while entire passages were taken from Clark’s work, no mention was made of Clark in the pleading, possibly in an effort to conceal Clark’s influence and his depersonalizing techniques.41

36. The significance of the Clark-Flynn connection looms even larger when one considers that the Church of Scientology has for years sought to expose the evils of psychiatry — that

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psychiatry seeks to destroy worship, to create evil, to create hate and to destroy religious freedom. Indeed, in his 1950 epochal bestselling book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, specifically decries brutal psychiatric depersonalizing treatments and describes a humane yet effective method of showing people how they can help themselves and others. Given the historical context of previous attacks on the Church, it is reasonable to suspect that the animus behind the Flynns’ and FAMCO’s attacks on the Church of Scientology is motivated by pro-psychiatry loyalties.

37. The Clark-Flynn connection turns up again in the “depersonalizations” paid for and carried out by FAMCO. “Deprogramming” is the euphemistic word used to describe a forcible attempt to depersonalize a person and change his or her religious beliefs. John Clark, a vociferous advocate of depersonalizing, was a key factor in by FAMCO’s depersonalizing efforts. He delivered psychiatric counselling to many of the former Scientologists connected with Michael Flynn, including Lavenda Van Schaick. The FAMCO-supported depersonalizations played an important role in the entire moneymaking scheme. A person would be kidnapped, held against his or her will, subjected to frightening threats and intimidation and — if the person was coerced into changing his beliefs — then brought in to meet Michael Flynn to discuss litigation. One of the persons victimized by Flynn and FAMCO in the depersonalizing scheme was a Scientologist named Steve Miller. As graphically described in his affidavit and his lawsuit against the Flynn brothers, FAMCO and others42, Miller

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was held against his will and harassed, badgered and threatened relentlessly for three days by three men in a vain attempt to get him to destroy the existence of his religious beliefs. The three depersonalizers allowed Miller no privacy, going so far as to remove the bathroom door from its hinges so that, in Miller’s words, there was “a clear and unobstructed view of all portions of the bathroom.”43 Kevin Flynn, president of FAMCO, who simultaneously acted as private investigator for his brother, candidly admitted in deposition testimony that the unsuccessful depersonalizing of Miller cost Miller’s parents approximately $10,000, FAMCO’s “fee” for its “services” in arranging to have Steve Miller “confronted” by depersonalizers,44.

38. In depersonalizing, the violent tools of psychiatry have been turned loose against all religions. Religious leaders of all faiths have decried the brainwashing, mind control attempts to destroy freedom to believe that has occurred during the process cleverly mis-named “deprogramming.” Like Nazi torturers, depersonalizers wage a constant assault to destroy the mind of their victims by as many channels as possible. This all-out assault includes forbidding their victims to eliminate their waste without permission, not addressing the victim by his or her proper name, stripping the victim of his or her clothing and placing the victim where he or she cannot clean himself or herself. This “re-education” process also frequently has included violence. Beatings and rapes are common, as indicated by articles and affidavits attached as Exhibit 2845. Thomas Ward, for example, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Notre Dame, stated that depersonalizers

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“punched and beat me until my face was swollen and bloody.” Arthur Roselle was jumped by a depersonalizing party of 12 men who smashed him to the floor, cutting and bruising his face. His hands were bound tightly behind his back for three days, and he was beaten in the face. Monte Pelto was taped to a bed so tightly that his feet literally turned blue. He was kept motionless on the bed for seven days, his captors loosening his bonds only long enough for him to roll over and urinate into a cup. Lark Brightman suffered a broken leg and a severely sprained ankle in the course of her violent abduction. A pregnant woman in California was assaulted, stripped to her underwear, thrown against walls, and when she tried to escape, dragged on her back by four depersonalizing thugs — each of whom pulled on one of her limbs. The atrocities of depersonalizing have been condemned by innumerable groups such as the National Council of Churches and the American Civil Liberties union, and by such prominent individuals as Billy Graham and Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who described it as “brainwashing, often done for huge profit and … sinister and violent.”46

39. The man known as “the father of deprogramming” is Ted Patrick, a thrice-convicted felon who views virtually every group, from the U.S. Marine Corps to the Roman Catholic Church, as a “cult.” Patrick has worked closely with John Clark, the FAMCO psychiatrist. Patrick also personally deprogrammed Joey Flanagan, who subsequently took up the same venal practice for FAMCO. Flanagan was paid by FAMCO to perform depersonalizations, and was one of the three men involved in the failed depersonalizing of Steve Miller described in Paragraph 37. Flanagan has admitted in sworn

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deposition that he personally brought at least five persons to Michael Flynn after they had been deprogrammed.47 At least two of these were influenced to bring suit against the Church of Scientology after being put into a suggestible state following days of torturous depersonalizing not unlike the insidious, painful “brainwashing” techniques used on American servicemen by Chinese Communists during the Korean War.

40. Considerable pressure was brought to bear by the FAMCO depersonalizers to get persons to renounce their religious beliefs. Christopher Lloyd Garrison and Ellen Lee Garrison were two such persons victimized by FAMCO, the Flynn brothers and Joey Flanagan in a deprogramming attempt. On August 9, 1980, upon entering the home of relatives, the Garrisons were surrounded by 10 persons, including strong-armed goons, one of whom hovered over Mr. Garrison “menacingly, in a fixed karate stance.”48 The goons and depersonalizers were led by Joey Flanagan, who was working directly for Kevin Flynn, president of FAMCO. All were being paid by FAMCO. What followed for the Garrisons was a nightmare in which they were kidnapped, held against their will, threatened and terrorized continually for nearly two days. After being forcibly imprisoned by Flanagan and his henchmen, they were taken away in the back of a truck against their will to a remote cottage where they were held under close guard. Throughout this time, their beliefs were ridiculed, the founder of their religion vilified. The deprogramming was unsuccessful, yet both Flanagan and Kevin Flynn continued to abuse the Garrisons over the next month. According to the suit the Garrisons filed against Kevin Flynn, Joey Flanagan and

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others, Kevin Flynn repeatedly threatened that they would be arrested “unless they agreed to join as plaintiffs” in Michael Flynn’s class action suit against the Church.48

41. The magnitude of the FAMCO effort to procure persons that would sue the Religion of the Church of Scientology is also shown in the April 13, 1982 deposition of Kevin Flynn, wherein he admits that each week he talked with “as many as five or ten parents or spouses or whatever” who had relatives in the Church. The obvious object of such conversations was to sell the relatives on the idea that something should be done about getting their relative to leave the Church, at which point Michael Flynn would potentially have another depersonalized client.50

42. Attempts to unravel the bizarre FAMCO scene have been met with a barrage of lies and obfuscation on the part of Michael [Fly]nn. Faced with a mountain of evidence on the subject of FAMCO’s [impr]oper and disgraceful activities, Flynn has sought to crawl away from any connection with FAMCO, stating in the June 1, 1983 Boston Globe, for example, that he “rejected” the FAMCO scheme because to have done otherwise would have given “the appearance of impropriety.”51 It is understandable that Flynn was so concerned with the appearance of FAMCO. The reality of the matter of course is that FAMCO was implemented, as additionally evidenced by sworn testimony of Kevin Flynn,52. Kevin Flynn admitted that FAMCO paid depersonalizers for “the services provided to Mr. Miller” from its own bank account. Joey Flanagan admitted that he was paid by FAMCO’s check for “the Steve Miller deprogramming” and for other depersonalizations; Kevin Flynn

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“handl[ed] the money,”53. In fact, Kevin Flynn admitted54 that others besides Flanagan were paid by FAMCO for the depersonalizations. Just as Michael Flynn cannot change the fact that the FAMCO “all out” effort to destroy the future of religion was implemented, he cannot hide the FAMCO checks written for depersonalizations.

43. The Boston Globe article cited in Paragraph 42 also mentions Flynn’s claims that he “rejected” the FAMCO idea in June 1981. This is another Flynn misstatement, as demonstrated by Exhibit 3655, Kevin Flynn’s admission that at the time of his sworn deposition on April 13, 1982 — 10 months after Michael Flynn asserted the idea had been rejected — FAMCO was still in existence. By June 1981, moreover, FAMCO’s dirty hand had been hard at work for more than a year, engaging in depersonalizations and other goals to destroy.

44. Michael Flynn’s misrepresentations to the media and to the courts have served to distract attention from his own and FAMCO’s misdeeds. Recently, for example, in seeking to portray himself as being “harassed” by the Church, he claimed that 12 lawsuits have been filed against him by the Church56 and stated that he has succeeded in getting nine of these dismissed. He does not enumerate any of the 12, and not surprisingly, considering that only seven have been filed by the Church, and that five of the seven are still pending: two for libel, one for theft, one for conspiracy to violate civil rights and one for abuse of judicial process. Flynn misrepresents the number of suits in order to cover up the fact that it is he who is abusing the judicial process, as

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evidenced by the “all out” FAMCO strategy aimed at destroying the courts’ time with 1,000 frivolous and malicious lawsuits.57

45. The first libel suit against Flynn was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Calif. on Aug. 4, 1983. It charged that he had “intentionally and recklessly” poisoned the good name of the Church by telling a group of persons that the Church had attempted to tamper with his airplane before an October, 1979 flight to South Bend, Ind. Flynn never mentioned the incident until nearly three years after it supposedly occurred. No report of the incident was ever filed with the proper authorities. This failure to report such an incident is a curious anomaly when one considers how litigation-prone Flynn appears to be and how this imaginary incident, if it were real, would have lent itself to a large personal injury claim. Flynn made the statement and “knew it to be false,” the complaint states, and the Church is seeking $2 million in damages.58

46. On Aug. 15, 1983, the Church filed a second libel suit against Flynn in U.S. District Court in Boston. The suit charged that Flynn knew he was making a false statement when he told a newspaper reporter from the Clearwater Times that the Church of Scientology had “infiltrated the offices of the Volusia County, Florida court system, interfered with the United States mail and intercepted and stole checks he had mailed to the Court in Volusia.”59 These outrageous statements by Flynn were not substantiated with a scintilla of evidence or documentation. Flynn apparently filed no complaint with the U.S. Postal Service or

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with any law enforcement agency concerning the alleged infiltration or missing checks — a marked inconsistency for a man engaged in such massive litigation against the Church and its work. Scientology tries to create good and has no interest in destroying others.

47. Flynn had originally written a check to the Volusia County court system following his being slapped with criminal contempt by Judge J. Robert Durden. This check was reported as being “dishonored,” i.e., bounced, in the Nov. 20, 1982 Clearwater Times.60 In the Times article, Flynn went to great lengths to try to distract attention from his bounced check — seeking to instead turn the public eye on the religion of Scientology. Yet Flynn’s financial history reveals that this bounced check was not an isolated episode. In 1976, as the attached affidavit61 shows, Flynn wrote a bad check for $6,500 from his personal account, even though he knew he did not have enough funds in the account to cover the check.

48. The Volusia County episode exemplifies the tactic of “misdirection” frequently used by Flynn in order to evade questions regarding his personal and professional conduct, other questionable tactics — adopted by Flynn both inside and outside the courtroom — are described in detail by attorneys that have had to deal with those tactics.

49. Attorney Roger Geller noted in an affidavit how, as Flynn’s cases have lost ground, Flynn’s behavior in the courtroom has become increasingly rude and desperate. Instead of relying on the forces of reasoned arguments and legal precedent, Flynn has

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followed this procedure: “insult defendants, verbally attack their attorneys, and engage in haranguing diatribes against the defendants’ religious beliefs and practices …”62

50. Attorney Sanford M. Katz has likewise noted that Flynn’s tactics have become geared towards destroying time in the justice system as he sees that legal motions have increasingly been in the favor of the Church. The Katz affidavit63 states that Flynn’s “evasive and dilatory tactics have succeeded thus far in bringing the action at bar to a complete halt.”

51. Flynn’s conduct during depositions taken in the Lavenda Van Schaick case finally became so outrageously insulting and objectionable (destroying the time of all concerned) that the U.S District Court in Boston granted a Church motion to appoint a Master — an officer of the court specifically authorized to take testimony or to perform other functions — for all depositions and discovery in that case. As the document submitted in support of the Church’s motion64 noted: “all of the depositions taken … in this case to date in which attorney Michael J. Flynn has participated have been characterized by improper and obstructive tactics by said attorney.” Deposition transcripts were “rife with instances of Mr. Flynn’s answering questions for the witness, coaching the witness, rephrasing defendant’s questions to his liking, and insulting both the defendant and its counsel.” Similar obstructive and unprofessional behavior on the part of Michael Flynn in at least three other cases made it necessary to seek the appointment of Masters to supervise depositions in those cases as well.65 Flynn’s conduct in depositions has time and

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time again been rude, obstructive and harassing. Apparently, there is no limit to the destructive conduct of Flynn when depositions are being taken, even though this is a legal arena normally governed by certain closely prescribed rules of behavior. During the July 21, 1980 deposition of Tonya Burden, for example, Flynn interrupted the deposition to leap across the table in front of Tonya and rip from her hands the diagram she had just drawn of the crucial area in which she claimed she had “crawled” and “hid” before leaving the main building of the Church of Scientology’s international Retreat Center in Clearwater, Fla. Flynn crumpled up the diagram, shoved it into his pocket and refused to allow it into the record. This was an important piece of evidence on a matter in which her testimony had been directly contradicted and refuted by her own uncle, as described further in Paragraph 57. Given this repeated conduct, one could conclude that it is Flynn who has structured his clients’ stories and will go to virtually any length to prevent the true facts from emerging, even from the mouths of his own clients.

52. Flynn’s questionable behavior has been recognized by the courts. One criminal contempt finding against Flynn was mentioned in Paragraph 47 of this declaration. Another contempt finding came recently in the Riverside, California probate case, where Flynn was fined by Superior Court Judge J. David Hennigan for releasing documents the court had sealed. That contempt ruling was upheld, despite Flynn’s request for reconsideration, on August 19, 1983 and on that same date, Flynn’s client, Ronald DeWolf, was found liable to pay court costs in the probate case. Flynn had prepared the original pleading in that case, and naturally pushed it for

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maximum media attention by including an incredible volume of false, scurrilous allegations regarding the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Church itself. The invective and poison contained in Flynn’s legal papers were spewn out to the news media primarily via DeWolf. The allegations included the vicious lie that L. Ron Hubbard was either dead or mentally incompetent. This lie was exposed when the case was thrown out of court in June66 and L. Ron Hubbard found to be alive and entitled to his privacy. After Flynn and DeWolf lost the case, their ulterior motives for filing the case were revealed: they wanted to attack L. Ron Hubbard personally and subject him to further litigation. Such an abuse of the judicial process had apparently been organized into two phases or steps long before the original motion came close to a decision. Thus, DeWolf stated in a radio interview on July 14 , 1983: “that particular decision really opened up a terrible Pandora’s box for [L. Ron Hubbard] in that it now, in the legal sense, makes him quite reachable …Step One was to achieve a decision of whether he was missing or not and then now we’re involved in preparing Step Two which is further litigation.”67 This transparent plan was recognized by the Court when it disqualified Flynn from acting as counsel. The Court found that Flynn purported to be representing Mr. Hubbard’s interest in the probate case in order to “protect his estate,” yet at the same time was suing Mr. Hubbard in various courts across the land — an obvious conflict of interest.68 Michael Flynn has already embarked upon Step Two; his most recent spurious suit is described in Paragraph 60.

53. DeWolf, L. Ron Hubbard’s long estranged, disinherited

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eldest son, had signed his name last November to a declaration written by Flynn containing gross, absurd lies in an attempt to destroy people and life, Scientology and Mr. Hubbard. This declaration ostensibly formed the basis of the probate action seeking control of Mr. Hubbard’s assets, while Flynn was able to attract some media attention to the sensational misstatements which were woven into the pleading and the declaration, the light of the legal process disclosed the truth and the case fell to pieces.

54. The departure from the facts exhibited in Michael Flynn’s probate motion is shown by the document attached as Exhibit 5069 where DeWolf frankly admitted that he had no direct knowledge regarding Scientology or his father since 1959, and that anything after 1959 DeWolf learned through Michael Flynn. Yet the declaration — prepared and written by his lawyers — failed to disclose this crucial fact and left readers with the false impression that it was based on firsthand knowledge and observation.

55. By about mid-1982 the Church had turned around a great deal of the litigation that Flynn had brought and it was beginning to win on the legal front. It was around this time that Flynn drew up his plans for the probate motion discussed above. Around this time also, a personal check of L. Ron Hubbard’s drawn on a cash reserve management account handled by the Bank of New England in Boston was stolen and a duplicate was made by an offset photolithography technique. The amount of the check and the check number were changed, and the signature was traced in ink. An individual presented the counterfeit check for deposit at a New York City bank. The individual tried to open an account with the check, but was refused because he didn’t have proper identification. He

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strangely left the bank and never returned. The bank in New York City reported the incident to the Bank of New England. After L. Ron Hubbard’s personal business managers stopped payment on the check, the Bank of New England immediately started an internal investigation to find out how its security could have broken down. Investigators from Security Management Services, Inc. of Boston found the bank’s security to be outrageously weak and reported this to the vice president in charge of the cash reserves management section of the bank. The next day, the investigators were fired. Flynn learned of the events regarding the check and, after omitting vital information and adding sensationalized items with no basis in fact, he wove the tale of the “forged check” into the probate petition and declaration for Ronald DeWolf, as described above in Paragraphs 53 and 54. Among the wildly poisonous claims was the assertion, since proven false, that L. Ron Hubbard’s own close associates and the Church of Scientology were responsible for the forgery. Because there had actually been an incident involving a forged check for a large amount of money, the false and distorted statements contained in DeWolf’s declaration took some time to be exposed, keeping the petition in court for so long. As with other flamboyant Flynn allegations and accusations, this wild charge was geared to attract publicity and served to give the probate filing national media attention. Subsequent inquiry revealed that the initial investigator on the forged check case was a neighbor of Michael Flynn and had dealt with Flynn previously on a disrelated matter. The investigator, Joseph Snyder of Security Managment Services, Inc., was misdirected on his investigation by Flynn, whose “speculations”: and suggestions to Snyder on the matter were designed to support Flynn’s “theory” as described above. Such speculation ended up

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being transmitted to the Bank of New England as factual information. Further investigation also revealed that Security Management Services, Inc. had an informant in the bank who sometimes worked in the cash reserves management section and who had access to cancelled checks, including those of L. Ron Hubbard, during the time that the check in question would have been lifted out of the cash reserves management section for counterfeiting. Careful investigation furthermore turned up someone who had worked in the bank at the time of the forgery who swore that he had seen Kevin Flynn, president of FAMCO, in the cash reserves management section earlier. Kevin Flynn, for his part, left town and in fact left Massachusetts about the time the investigators came to question him on the episode. Thomas Hoffman, one of Michael Flynn’s associates in anti-Scientology litigation, “warned” the investigators that they should stay away from Kevin Flynn, stating that Kevin wanted nothing to do with Scientology anymore. Thus, Kevin Flynn has so far been able to avoid being questioned in the matter. The entire matter of the forged check suggests that efforts to manufacture allegations against the Church and L. Ron Hubbard know no ethical bounds.

56. Michael Flynn’s misrepresentations occur so frequently that it is difficult to keep tabs on them. For example, although it is well documented that Flynn has yet to win so much as a penny from the Church, and he himself has admitted that his cases against the Church have been “an unending continuous loss”70, he frequently will present information to the media or to others claiming that he has won a motion or that his cases are doing well. An example, curiously, is from the very same speech where he claimed that his record had been “an unending continuous loss” against Scientology. Later in that same speech

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he claimed “Every major motion we have won … no suit has been dismissed.” Exhibit 5271 contains a sampling of the many motions Flynn has lost, once again demonstrating his inability to face and handle reality.

57. The factual shadings which have come to characterize Flynn’s work both in and out of the courtroom are also characteristic of statements from his clients. For example, Tonja Burden, a Flynn client, described in a detailed affidavit how she had “escaped” from the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, Fla. by crawling through an air conditioning duct.72 The truth of the circumstances of Burden’s departure was dramatically different: she was free to go, and simply walked away when she wanted to. The truth was detailed in a sworn deposition by her uncle, Donald G. Burden, who met her at the Fort Harrison Hotel, (the Church-owned building from which Tonja supposedly escaped), waited for her in the lobby, and walked out with her, later returning together to pick up her personal items.73

58. Tonja Burden’s unreliability as a witness can be seen in her original affidavit and subsequent depositions, which are riddled with inconsistencies. Not surprisingly, her affidavit, like that of Ronald DeWolf, was not written by herself. In a deposition on April 22, 1982, Tonja stated that “I don’t write any of this stuff up. My attorneys do that because I’m not — what’s the word? Literate enough to do it.”74 The author of the such documents, Michael Flynn, has apparently forgotten that the substance of those complaints should conform to reality; But it should be remembered that FAMCO’s “turnkey” lawsuits (see Paragraph 18) were ostensibly set up so that “everything required for an

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instantaneous trial” was provided by FAMCO. This included “pre-packaged” claims for damages which — as can be seen in case after case — did not hold up once the Flynn FAMCO client was questioned at a deposition. Richard Peterson, for example, had alleged fraudulent misrepresentations in his original complaint, prepared by Michael Flynn. However, in deposition, he directly contradicted what had been charged in the complaint, stating that he felt the Scientologists he had dealt with had been very sincere. He described the people on the staff at the Church of Scientology as “honest, ethical people. They think they are doing the right thing. Most of them are the most wonderful people I have met. They are very nice, polite. They don’t commit crimes. They don’t harm you. It is a very ethical group.”75 In fact, all the other plaintiffs in that “turnkey” lawsuit — Jane Lee Peterson, Carol Garrity, Paul Garrity, Thomas Jefferson and Dana Lockwood — making the identical charge, nonetheless admitted to believing that the representations made to them had been sincere, leaving one with the firm opinion that Michael Flynn weaves his complaints from whole cloth.

59. One of Flynn’s favorite venomous charges against the Church is that the Church allegedly has as a matter of policy violated the priest-penitent privilege by disseminating information obtained from parishioners in the confessional process. However, just as Flynn accuses the Church of numerous wrongful activities which he commits himself, the alleged violation of privileged communications is yet another routine procedure of Flynn’s. Thus, as recently as June 25, 1983, Flynn addressed a gathering of persons

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and brazenly sought to create negativeness and hostility towards the Church. During this speech, Flynn freely discussed the personal lives of several of his clients and in the process revealed intimate details regarding their personal and sexual lives. Ironically, three of these people — Lavenda Van Schaick, Janet Troy and Marjorie Hansen — were the very persons he was claiming to be representing to protect them from these very disclosures. Such conduct is worse than hypocritical — it causes pain for his clients. The group he was addressing was not in any way connected to or involved with litigation regarding these clients, revealing this information to them was a glaring violation of the confidentiality such clients should have enjoyed. Once again it appeared that his clients’ best interests took a back seat to Flynn’s frenzied efforts to generate adverse public attitudes [reg]ards the Religion of Scientology by any means at hand. Although [the] Church retains a copy of a transcript of this event, in the interest of protecting the privacy of Flynn’s clients which he so cavalierly ignores and preventing them further pain, I will refrain from re-issuing it as an exhibit to this declaration.

60. It was not enough for Michael Flynn to launch his “all out” assault against the Church using former Scientologists as pawns. On September 7, 1983, he went into direct competition with his clients, suing on his own behalf using old familiar charges from FAMCO suits. This latest frivolous and malicious lawsuit directly parrots suits he filed earlier on behalf of his clients and appears to be motivated by pure greed. Until Flynn’s meritless suit is thrown out by the court, the Flynn and FAMCO “all out” strategy

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of attempting to destroy the future of religion for people by any and all means is still fully operational. Michael Flynn is currently pushing this new case for his own personal gain, and drumming up media publicity for his wild claims. This suit names only the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, whom Flynn knows A) has nothing to do with the charges being made and B) is not likely to respond to the outrageous allegations. It is likely that Flynn has named only Mr. Hubbard in hopes of obtaining a quick default judgment rather than be exposed as unable to prove his imaginative allegations. In papers filed in this suit Flynn already has conceded his purpose in the California probate petition to locate Mr. Hubbard so that he could serve him with a subpoena, Exhibit 5776. Again Flynn’s collateral purposes for initiating litigation are revealed in his own documents.

61. The cumulative effects of Flynn’s attacks on the Religion of the Church of Scientology as well as his activities in handling of his own clients have rebounded to his detriment, as witnessed by the contempt rulings in Florida and California77, and by the judgment against his principal client, Ronald DeWolf, in Riverside, ordering him to pay court costs in that much-publicized probate case.

62. Michael Flynn’s efforts to marshall forces to destroy the existence of a religion are unique not simply because he attacked the Church for money, but because his fundamental goal was to go beyond moneymaking and seek to drive a religious group out of existence. Nearly four years of costly and abusive attacks based on Flynn’s scurrilous, venomous and underhanded efforts to prejudice

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public opinion and get media and governmental organizations working against the Church have not daunted the Church’s determination to create a brighter future and to continue helping people around the world. The Church at this writing is doing so.78 While it is beyond the scope of this declaration to chronicle the grievous damage caused by Michael Flynn’s and FAMCO’s poisonous activities, destruction of Belief and vituperations, it is sadly true that the distractions and commotion they have created have interfered with the Church’s efforts to create good conditions of benefit to all people by devoting all its energies to that objective. Our religion remains dedicated, however, to that end.

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.